The UCI added: ?This does not mean the riders included have broken any anti-doping rules. However the indications in the report are sufficiently serious and so the UCI has informed the ProTour teams so that they can apply their code of ethics.?

Basso, Mancebo, Ullrich and Sevilla have already been suspended by their teams and sent home from the Tour but Astana-Wurth seem determined to fight to the end to make sure the team and their riders start the Tour on Saturday.

Astana won their appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Thursday and believe the team should be allowed to take part in the Tour de France because there is insufficient proof against the riders.

However the Tour organisers would like the whole team out of the race and with five riders in theory out Astana does not have the minimum of six riders needed under UCI rules to start the Tour.

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